In some ways it’s harder to park a bicycle or e-bike. They are a lot easier to steal than a car; if they are not chained to something solid, a thief can simply walk away with them. Hard to do this with a car.
"the idea you sometimes see in urbanist circles that getting cars and building car-supportive infrastructure was bad is insane."
Cars are useful in places with low density because they reduce travel times. However, when the density of residents/job/amenities exceeds a certain level, cars slow the transportation system down. When I walk to the grocery store or anywhere else I need to wait at stop lights because they allow cars on the streets. My pedestrian, bicycle and transit trips would all be faster if they got rid of cars, and that time savings exceeds the time savings from when I occasionally drive.
I live in Pittsburgh, which isn't even that dense.
Banning cars in Pittsburgh would improve safety, give my kids the freedom to play in the street with less supervision, improve air quality, reduce noise pollution, and improve travel times. How is wanting this insane?
There would need to be some provision for delivery vehicles moving bulk goods, and there would be some instances where it would be less convenient to move luggage/cargo, but these drawbacks seem to be worth the benefits to me.
Eliminating parking requirements is a good, probably minimal first step. But we have to look at the motivation behind them. The idea is that without them some people of venue X will try street parking near venue Y in competition with people who live at venue Y and feel they have a right to their free street parking. If you have it, it's hard not to feel you "own" it. We ought to meter these residential parking spots, compensating homeowners for use by others and exempting them from infractions.
If this were done there would be one less reason -- though others would remain -- for people to oppose higher density development.
I wouldn't say e-bikes are "just" better. Carrying one up three flights of stairs to your apartment or riding one after the battery runs out of juice are two examples I can think of that would suggest e-bikes are perhaps just... different than normal bikes. I can also repair everything on my bike myself with a small set relatively cheap tools, and my bike won't eventually contribute a battery to a landfill.
Not to rain on the e-bike parade - I think they're great complements and a ton of fun.
An e-bike is definitely not better (yet) for someone like me at this point, a very experienced, youngish (Matt's age) cyclist. But as I said downthread, I would seriously consider it as I get older. And I think it's safe to say that for most people, who do not and may never have not commuted by bicycle, they will appreciate the lack of strenuousness that an e-bike offers. There are tradeoffs both ways of course, but I thought Matt's statement there was appropriate.
Absolutely. I'm 63. The hills were getting too much for me. On my ebike I'm not riding fast, but I'm still riding. And the other ebikers I see, young and old, they aren't tearing around either.
Here is Seattle cargo ebikes are really popular. People are riding with groceries or toddlers. They are not going fast. It is goodness.
Has Matt's post got you interested in ebiking? I'm 63, I live in a hilly area, I have an ebike, and I'm an engineer who understands what matters in an ebike.
Matt is 100% correct that the biggest benefit of an ebike is climbing hills. If I commuted around Amsterdam I wouldn't bother. With a regular bike I go 15mph on the flat, double the power on an ebike and go 20, it makes a few minutes difference on a commute. But climbing hills, it is really hard to climb a long hill on a bicycle! So if you live where it is flat and you don't ride your bike you might not ride your new ebike either. But if hills are killing you it makes a huge difference.
So what ebike to buy? The expensive ones put the motor at the cranks (called mid-drive). This is best for climbing steep hills because shifting gears helps you and the motor, both can spin faster even as the bike slows down. Cheaper ones put the motor in the hub, when you slow on a hill the motor slows too, it generates less power and can overheat if you push it too hard. So mid-drive is better, but hub drive is cheaper. The decision comes to hills. If your area has mild hills hub drive can be fine (more on this to come), if you have steep long hills mid-drive might be necessary. How do you know if you have steep hills? If you have a derailleur bike and on the hills you shift to 1st and it is still hard going you have steep hills. If 1st climbs the hill OK but you are now at walking speed and balancing the bike gets hard you have steep hills. If your experience is less severe hub drive is probably fine.
Another thing that costs money is a torque sensor. This is a sensor at the cranks that senses how hard you are pushing on the pedals. With a torque sensor the ebike multiplies your effort. It is pretty wonderful, like riding a bike except you are way more fit. Cheaper ebikes drop the torque sensor and use a simpler sensor that monitors how fast the cranks are turning. If you start climbing a hill a torque sensor ebike can tell and it puts on more power. A crank speed ebike can't tell. To get more power you manually increase the assist on the control screen. In the end a torque sensor feels better but both work. Mid-drives tend to have torque sensors built-into the drive. Hub drive torque sensors are a separate and most hub drive ebikes go for the cheaper solution, but this is just market pressure, torque sensor hub drive exists and works fine.
If you buy a hub drive the manufacturer will tout a top speed. You might think 25mph is better than 20mph, but the opposite is true. In real biking the only time you go 25 is down a hill and you don't need the motor. A hub motor geared for a 25mph top speed is worse on the hills, on a hill the motor wants a low gear for the same reason you do. An ideal hub motor top speed would be 18mph. 18mph is plenty fast on a bicycle and the lower gearing really helps on the hills. But you won't find an 18mph hub drive bike, 18mph top speed sounds lame and 25mph sounds better in the showroom.
I have an ebike. I don't like to ride it in the rain, or when the streets are icy, or when I'm going to sweat to death in the heat. And if you have to look semi-decent for work, that's a problem.
What we need to do is to continue to improve micromobility options to the solve the last mile problem from home to transit in ways that can protect against the elements.
Matt, this has got to be the weirdest piece you’ve written in months. Urbanists argue that car infrastructure has externalities! Dense public spaces serve a broad public. Malls and big roads force car-only approaches and kill people. It’s fine to argue against this perspective, but dismissing it is “insane” is uncharacteristic and not good
I think being anti-car infrastructure doesn’t make sense for three reasons. First, it’s better to be pro-bike, or pro-bus, than anti-car. Then, you’re advocating to get something you want rather than taking away something someone else is attached to. You’re less likely stimulative to car-lovers. The alternative mode of getting around is the thesis, not the rebuttal. So you preempt the whine, “but how are people going to get around without cars”. Of course, bike or bud infrastructure might crowd out car infrastructure, and that would be a happy bonus if you really are anti-car.
Second, if you really hate cars and the constituency for their infrastructure, you should address why people are living in ways that they need cars and why they can’t support bikes or mass transit. In most of the country, building apartments or tall apartments is illegal or weighed down by onerous and unpredictable permitting regimes. So, if we legalize more and bigger apartment buildings, the car problem would solve itself. The car constituency would weaken as more people find that bikes or buses work better for them. Also, denser living arrangements create the regular ridership that demands and supports mass transit.
Third, car drivers don’t even pay their fair share for their abundant car infrastructure. So, as a matter of political realism, the car constituency is so powerful that not only does it get the infrastructure it wants, it gets it heavily subsidized. Given this power, goals and rhetoric should be directed to more basic notions of fairness, and not of discouraging cars. For example, usage fees like congestion pricing or gas taxes aren’t anti-car so much as they are about having car-drivers pay a fair share relative to walkers, bikers, transport users. Likewise, private parking should be encouraged. This means, counterintuitively, that anti-car people should support the permitting of private parking garages. (As a bonus, private parking garages create an vested interest against on-street parking.) Anti-car should also oppose parking maximums. The goal would be to shift parking from something that is publicly provisioned or mandated to something people pay for, like an ordinary private and exclusive good. The goal wouldn’t be to abolish parking, just to privatize it. Because parking is so publicly supported, it doesn’t make sense to even begin the pigovian/ externalities discussion. We’re just not there yet.
E-bikers don't have a natural political constituency to advocate for them, either. The traditional bicycling advocacy groups tend to be dominated by the spandex set, and are at best ambivalent to e-bikes.
E-bikers, get involved in your local bike advocacy group! We need supply side reform (more bike infrastructure) not rationing and austerity (banning e-bikes from existing trails).
This article touches on something important. Our cities have to change over time, or we will continue to build up problems. A lot of people in urban environments want to stop change, but it is happening underneath them and eroding their foundations. I'm thinking of the ultra-Catholics in Italy fighting Garibaldi in the novel The Leopard". “For things to remain the same, everything must change.” A lot of rich urban dwellers need to get over the politics of reaction and embrace the future.
I am a long time bike commuter in Minneapolis, and I'm noticing more e-bikes out there on the bike paths. Like other commenters, I have a few safety concerns. But, to be honest, I am probably biased because I find it irritating to be passed by some out of shape person who isn't even pedaling. Some pettiness may be coloring my perspective. So I try to be a little more fair-minded.
The truth is that riding any kind of bike is a fairly dangerous activity, but, on balance, getting more people out there using bikes to get around has got to be a good thing. Safety concerns can be addressed. For example, maybe ebikes could have speed limiters that prevent them going more than maybe 15 mph. Or maybe the electric assist automatically turns off when the bike is going downhill.
And we are far from having bike lanes that are too crowded for both ebikes and regular bikes. More and more people who bike regularly should lead to more development of safer places to ride, like protected bike lanes.
(Now, when it comes to e-mountain bikes on dirt trails built for human powered bikes, I embrace my pettiness. I have zero patience for people who spend $10,000 on what is effectively a motorbike because they are too lazy to huff and puff up the hills with the rest of us.)
I get what you are saying about the irritation. On my ebike I get passed by club riders, and I could use more assist and pass them, but I don't because that would be rude. I get that.
At the same time I have yet to see the mythical ebiker on a hopped-up machine terrorizing other cyclist on the bike path.
Inclusivity is best. Cycling is helped by more cyclists, even if they are on ebikes. Cycling culture should be about consideration, that means no whizzing close by pedestrians, ebike or no ebike.
I've commute biked on human power ever since I was a teenager, and since I'm Matt's age, I'm starting to realize that at some point, hopefully not too soon, I'll need an e-bike just because I'll get too old for a regular one.
I feel similarly. I bought a good bike for commuting and riding longer distances for recreation and then the pandemic came and the need to commute went away, but I do ride for hours on our very nice long bike trail that runs along the American River and I just find it strange how many ebikes are out there on a weekend because it seems like recreation but they are not really pedaling and when you pass them they seem to be annoyed and speed up and it's just strange to see someone barely pedaling and going kind of fast -- I think they make perfect sense for commuting and there are plenty of folks who use that trail to commute during the week but I just kind of wish on the weekend that the trail was for bikers and runners and walkers (I find the roller bladers kind of irritating because they take up so much space but I grudgingly acknowledge that they should also be welcome) and not for vehicles with motors. But I don't have a good reason for this -- it is probably pettiness.
My answer is: a class 1 (20 MPH, pedal-assist) ebike is fine everywhere a regular bicycle is, for all the reasons listed above -- normal bikes routinely reach this speed among even the moderately-fit.
A class 2 (throttle-controlled bike) is a motorcycle regardless of top speed and should be treated as such (or as a moped, if such a thing is licensed in your jurisdiction). Maybe that means it's allowed on a multi-mode path if it's got a speed limiter, or maybe not. No strong opinion there. Where I live, throttle-controlled vehicles (ebikes, mopeds, dirt bikes, etc.) are not permitted on multi-mode paths, though in practice I don't see much enforcement on electric bikes (vs gas-powered bikes, where there definitely is enforcement).
A class (28 MPH, pedal-assist) ebike is the grey zone. Most cyclists (if you include occasional and recreational cyclists) do not achieve this speed except on downhills, and it's far in excess of what's reasonable on sidewalks or on multi-use trails that aren't bicycle-only. I think these should probably not be allowed on trails/sidewalks where pedestrians are allowed, but I also think it's clearly a grey area and people will have differing opinions.
Yes, I lived in NYC for more than a decade without a car. I even lived in Brooklyn for seven years without a car. I understand. I had a bike. I was an early ZipCar member. I loved the subway. I occasionally took cabs. And, when I needed to go to wedding in the region, but outside of the city, I would even rent a car -- although that was generally before the existence of ZipCar.
NYC's subway made that possible. Without the subway, we could not have done it. I do not know that we could have done that in Boston or any other American city.
And I have known many many people who found that having children made carless NYC life much more difficult. In our 8 unit/4-story building, most residents had a car, though only one.
So, why did I cite Brooklyn? Well, it's somewhere that I am intimately familiar with. It's somewhere that many people think they are familiar with. It is considered more family-friendly than Manhattan.
And, it can get people like you to chime in.
So, I invite you to consider the other people who live in your building. How many of them have cars? Do the cars of the people in your building fit just in front of your building? Do you think the expectations of your peers match your own?
And finally, I offered numbers. I offered numbers for a broader audience. I was explicit in what I laid out so that people could evaluation their implications for themselves.
>>Something like an e-bike or a scooter for daily use and an Uber or a Zipcar for occasional car needs is a decent combination for a lot of people.<<
There's a capacity-setting issue here. If not that many people use e-bikes, then depending on alternatives like Uber isn't a problem. But if the majority use e-bikes then when the big storm comes rolling in, or it's really freezing, and everyone is desperate for an Uber to get to work, then there's a problem. Those cars simply won't be there.
I'm not sure what the solution is, though maybe folks with e-bikes are fine with going out in a rainstorm or a deep freeze.
When the big storm comes rolling in, people will postpone nonessential trips, or replace them with closer substitutes they can walk to. Or, switch from bikes to public transit. The idea that, every time it rains, every bike trip gets replaced with an Uber trip is simply not true.
Not to mention people get used to their local weather. Plenty of people bike in the rain and cold in the PNW. We’re just used to it. We tend to get drizzle over a long period of time rather than really heavy rain but we still do get really heavy downpours. And 35 F with rain is about as miserable as it can get. We still have people commuting by bike in that weather.
Love that e-bikes are part of the discussion even in these circles! I’ve been riding them for 6 years now. Early adopter because I live in East Harlem and there were tons of delivery guys on them and I just thought they seemed cool. For me it was all about how quickly I could get to the pool where I swim (1.5 miles away) and volleyball leagues around the city (.5 to 2 miles away). The ebike proved amazing for both. I had kids 5 years ago and quickly started bringing my daughter everywhere (daycare and errands) on the bike. When we had our second, we got the radwagon and it has become our “bus” for getting the kids everywhere. A couple things make this doable for us: 1) we live on the first floor of our condo building. Bringing these big heavy bikes in and out can be hard for people who live in walk ups. We need to build better safety storage for bikes. I leave the bikes out during the day (locked) and then bring in at the end of the day. 2) we have bike lanes all around East Harlem and there are so many bikes that people GENERALLY are pretty respectful of bikes.
I was always struck that the Dutch don’t wear helmets despite being a bike culture. Then I realized that when everyone rides bikes, car drivers are also bike riders and they are very aware of bikes as a result. You need less safety mechanisms. This is becoming more true in NYC, but still far from widespread enough. The white bikes you see on corners are memorials of where deaths on bikes have happened and they are far to frequent to be comfortable.
The radwagon is so popular and cool that I use it to bring my daughter and two of her friends from school to their afterschool program. Saving other parents the trip and also getting them there super quickly.
I rode motorcycles growing up (stopped when I moved to NYC 20 years ago after a few close calls) and I think the speed and power of an ebike feels relaxed compared to the motorcycles I used to ride. But I’m very aware of how frightening they can be to pedestrians and bike riders due to the speed. Hopefully this awareness builds are more people ride and it becomes more common.
Finally - alternate street parking is like my biggest complaint about NYC. It seems SOOOO dumb to charge nothing for something so valuable. To take such valuable space for cars when garage parking is $300-750/month (more in some places) is just insane. Tax revenue, additional bikes lanes. More spaces for outdoor dining. More pedestrian spaces, less congestion. Who advocates for free parking?
Dutch & helmets: there's another side to it. I grew up in the Netherlands and have practically biked all my life. When people starting using helmets (1995?), this felt incredibly wimpy. But for me, skiing with a helmet, I've always done that but I started in my 30s. Around that time, I met a lifelong skier and she thought skiers with helmets were wimps while biking with a helmet made perfect sense.
Non-affluent New Yorkers who can't find $7k in their annual budget for private parking, and the politicians who depend on their votes. That's who.
This past summer Matt Y. detailed a proposal that might address the constituent capture issues buttressing the insane policy of giving away precious city street space. He was talking about DC and other cities with similar, resident parking permit programs. Not sure if it would work in the context of NYC.(No permits there, right? You don't even have to have NY plates, IIRC).
My landlady is a judge. She has her nanny do the "street-cleaning shuffle" for her every week, which involves sitting in the car to look like you are going to move it when the street-cleaning comes by so you don't have to give up your free parking spot.
unfortunately it isn’t non-affluent parkers (at least not in my neighborhood). Here, people basically pay someone (less than garage parking, but not an insignificant amount), to move their car. We have a “fix a flat” on our block and the guys who run it, who are basically out front of the shop all day, basically run the parking on our street. They collect money from some people to move the cars and they provide it free to others who are “part of the community”. We actually got this offered to us, as we are super friendly, but we declined because we pay for parking at a garage nearby and it is fairly reasonable and we prefer that the service be for people who need it more.
There are no permits in NYC. You just have to move your car for 1.5 hours every two days. That is the “use tax” - and it is incredibly inefficient.
Sure. I didn't mean to denigrate the socioeconomic attributes of your neighborhood. Instead of "non-affluent" I guess I should have written something like "price conscious."
I just moved to Bentonville, Arkansas. They like bikes here. There are trails, and cars and bikes coexist with a great amount of harmony. It's really nice. I will probably buy an e-bike and a mountain bike once I get settled in to my new house.
I moved here from suburban Houston, where I lived for 24 years. I traveled a lot for my work and was able to spend time in many of our large metropolitan areas, including DC where both of my kids spent time there going to school. I'm glad you are embracing biking there and I can see where it may be a workable option for getting around there. Not so in Houston. It's too hot, too car-centric, and there are just way, way too many people there. It was very livable there when I moved there but the traffic is way worse now and the cost of living is catching up to other large metro areas.
There are a lot of mid-sized metro areas, however, that are great places. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska but, like many in my generation, migrated to larger cities for better job opportunities. Hopefully, fiber internet and the work-from-home revolution will spark a migation to places like Bentonville and Omaha that can adapt easier to the changing infrastructure needs. And, maybe over time, the big cities will get a little less big so they can open up some room to make changes there, too. Urbanization can be a two-way street (with bike lanes.)
Surely it's more like 1.9 -- the average number of feet per person is less than 2 after all. (Now I'm imagining a ration coupon regime in which everyone receives two footwear coupons -- one per shoe -- and there's an active market for spare coupons from amputees and other people with fewer than two feet.)
In some ways it’s harder to park a bicycle or e-bike. They are a lot easier to steal than a car; if they are not chained to something solid, a thief can simply walk away with them. Hard to do this with a car.
"the idea you sometimes see in urbanist circles that getting cars and building car-supportive infrastructure was bad is insane."
Cars are useful in places with low density because they reduce travel times. However, when the density of residents/job/amenities exceeds a certain level, cars slow the transportation system down. When I walk to the grocery store or anywhere else I need to wait at stop lights because they allow cars on the streets. My pedestrian, bicycle and transit trips would all be faster if they got rid of cars, and that time savings exceeds the time savings from when I occasionally drive.
I live in Pittsburgh, which isn't even that dense.
Banning cars in Pittsburgh would improve safety, give my kids the freedom to play in the street with less supervision, improve air quality, reduce noise pollution, and improve travel times. How is wanting this insane?
There would need to be some provision for delivery vehicles moving bulk goods, and there would be some instances where it would be less convenient to move luggage/cargo, but these drawbacks seem to be worth the benefits to me.
Eliminating parking requirements is a good, probably minimal first step. But we have to look at the motivation behind them. The idea is that without them some people of venue X will try street parking near venue Y in competition with people who live at venue Y and feel they have a right to their free street parking. If you have it, it's hard not to feel you "own" it. We ought to meter these residential parking spots, compensating homeowners for use by others and exempting them from infractions.
If this were done there would be one less reason -- though others would remain -- for people to oppose higher density development.
I wouldn't say e-bikes are "just" better. Carrying one up three flights of stairs to your apartment or riding one after the battery runs out of juice are two examples I can think of that would suggest e-bikes are perhaps just... different than normal bikes. I can also repair everything on my bike myself with a small set relatively cheap tools, and my bike won't eventually contribute a battery to a landfill.
Not to rain on the e-bike parade - I think they're great complements and a ton of fun.
An e-bike is definitely not better (yet) for someone like me at this point, a very experienced, youngish (Matt's age) cyclist. But as I said downthread, I would seriously consider it as I get older. And I think it's safe to say that for most people, who do not and may never have not commuted by bicycle, they will appreciate the lack of strenuousness that an e-bike offers. There are tradeoffs both ways of course, but I thought Matt's statement there was appropriate.
Absolutely. I'm 63. The hills were getting too much for me. On my ebike I'm not riding fast, but I'm still riding. And the other ebikers I see, young and old, they aren't tearing around either.
Here is Seattle cargo ebikes are really popular. People are riding with groceries or toddlers. They are not going fast. It is goodness.
Has Matt's post got you interested in ebiking? I'm 63, I live in a hilly area, I have an ebike, and I'm an engineer who understands what matters in an ebike.
Matt is 100% correct that the biggest benefit of an ebike is climbing hills. If I commuted around Amsterdam I wouldn't bother. With a regular bike I go 15mph on the flat, double the power on an ebike and go 20, it makes a few minutes difference on a commute. But climbing hills, it is really hard to climb a long hill on a bicycle! So if you live where it is flat and you don't ride your bike you might not ride your new ebike either. But if hills are killing you it makes a huge difference.
So what ebike to buy? The expensive ones put the motor at the cranks (called mid-drive). This is best for climbing steep hills because shifting gears helps you and the motor, both can spin faster even as the bike slows down. Cheaper ones put the motor in the hub, when you slow on a hill the motor slows too, it generates less power and can overheat if you push it too hard. So mid-drive is better, but hub drive is cheaper. The decision comes to hills. If your area has mild hills hub drive can be fine (more on this to come), if you have steep long hills mid-drive might be necessary. How do you know if you have steep hills? If you have a derailleur bike and on the hills you shift to 1st and it is still hard going you have steep hills. If 1st climbs the hill OK but you are now at walking speed and balancing the bike gets hard you have steep hills. If your experience is less severe hub drive is probably fine.
Another thing that costs money is a torque sensor. This is a sensor at the cranks that senses how hard you are pushing on the pedals. With a torque sensor the ebike multiplies your effort. It is pretty wonderful, like riding a bike except you are way more fit. Cheaper ebikes drop the torque sensor and use a simpler sensor that monitors how fast the cranks are turning. If you start climbing a hill a torque sensor ebike can tell and it puts on more power. A crank speed ebike can't tell. To get more power you manually increase the assist on the control screen. In the end a torque sensor feels better but both work. Mid-drives tend to have torque sensors built-into the drive. Hub drive torque sensors are a separate and most hub drive ebikes go for the cheaper solution, but this is just market pressure, torque sensor hub drive exists and works fine.
If you buy a hub drive the manufacturer will tout a top speed. You might think 25mph is better than 20mph, but the opposite is true. In real biking the only time you go 25 is down a hill and you don't need the motor. A hub motor geared for a 25mph top speed is worse on the hills, on a hill the motor wants a low gear for the same reason you do. An ideal hub motor top speed would be 18mph. 18mph is plenty fast on a bicycle and the lower gearing really helps on the hills. But you won't find an 18mph hub drive bike, 18mph top speed sounds lame and 25mph sounds better in the showroom.
I have an ebike. I don't like to ride it in the rain, or when the streets are icy, or when I'm going to sweat to death in the heat. And if you have to look semi-decent for work, that's a problem.
What we need to do is to continue to improve micromobility options to the solve the last mile problem from home to transit in ways that can protect against the elements.
The dirty secret about bike share networks, is that the bikes are terrible. If that changed, you would see usage go up.
Matt, this has got to be the weirdest piece you’ve written in months. Urbanists argue that car infrastructure has externalities! Dense public spaces serve a broad public. Malls and big roads force car-only approaches and kill people. It’s fine to argue against this perspective, but dismissing it is “insane” is uncharacteristic and not good
I think being anti-car infrastructure doesn’t make sense for three reasons. First, it’s better to be pro-bike, or pro-bus, than anti-car. Then, you’re advocating to get something you want rather than taking away something someone else is attached to. You’re less likely stimulative to car-lovers. The alternative mode of getting around is the thesis, not the rebuttal. So you preempt the whine, “but how are people going to get around without cars”. Of course, bike or bud infrastructure might crowd out car infrastructure, and that would be a happy bonus if you really are anti-car.
Second, if you really hate cars and the constituency for their infrastructure, you should address why people are living in ways that they need cars and why they can’t support bikes or mass transit. In most of the country, building apartments or tall apartments is illegal or weighed down by onerous and unpredictable permitting regimes. So, if we legalize more and bigger apartment buildings, the car problem would solve itself. The car constituency would weaken as more people find that bikes or buses work better for them. Also, denser living arrangements create the regular ridership that demands and supports mass transit.
Third, car drivers don’t even pay their fair share for their abundant car infrastructure. So, as a matter of political realism, the car constituency is so powerful that not only does it get the infrastructure it wants, it gets it heavily subsidized. Given this power, goals and rhetoric should be directed to more basic notions of fairness, and not of discouraging cars. For example, usage fees like congestion pricing or gas taxes aren’t anti-car so much as they are about having car-drivers pay a fair share relative to walkers, bikers, transport users. Likewise, private parking should be encouraged. This means, counterintuitively, that anti-car people should support the permitting of private parking garages. (As a bonus, private parking garages create an vested interest against on-street parking.) Anti-car should also oppose parking maximums. The goal would be to shift parking from something that is publicly provisioned or mandated to something people pay for, like an ordinary private and exclusive good. The goal wouldn’t be to abolish parking, just to privatize it. Because parking is so publicly supported, it doesn’t make sense to even begin the pigovian/ externalities discussion. We’re just not there yet.
E-bikers don't have a natural political constituency to advocate for them, either. The traditional bicycling advocacy groups tend to be dominated by the spandex set, and are at best ambivalent to e-bikes.
E-bikers, get involved in your local bike advocacy group! We need supply side reform (more bike infrastructure) not rationing and austerity (banning e-bikes from existing trails).
This article touches on something important. Our cities have to change over time, or we will continue to build up problems. A lot of people in urban environments want to stop change, but it is happening underneath them and eroding their foundations. I'm thinking of the ultra-Catholics in Italy fighting Garibaldi in the novel The Leopard". “For things to remain the same, everything must change.” A lot of rich urban dwellers need to get over the politics of reaction and embrace the future.
I am a long time bike commuter in Minneapolis, and I'm noticing more e-bikes out there on the bike paths. Like other commenters, I have a few safety concerns. But, to be honest, I am probably biased because I find it irritating to be passed by some out of shape person who isn't even pedaling. Some pettiness may be coloring my perspective. So I try to be a little more fair-minded.
The truth is that riding any kind of bike is a fairly dangerous activity, but, on balance, getting more people out there using bikes to get around has got to be a good thing. Safety concerns can be addressed. For example, maybe ebikes could have speed limiters that prevent them going more than maybe 15 mph. Or maybe the electric assist automatically turns off when the bike is going downhill.
And we are far from having bike lanes that are too crowded for both ebikes and regular bikes. More and more people who bike regularly should lead to more development of safer places to ride, like protected bike lanes.
(Now, when it comes to e-mountain bikes on dirt trails built for human powered bikes, I embrace my pettiness. I have zero patience for people who spend $10,000 on what is effectively a motorbike because they are too lazy to huff and puff up the hills with the rest of us.)
I get what you are saying about the irritation. On my ebike I get passed by club riders, and I could use more assist and pass them, but I don't because that would be rude. I get that.
At the same time I have yet to see the mythical ebiker on a hopped-up machine terrorizing other cyclist on the bike path.
Inclusivity is best. Cycling is helped by more cyclists, even if they are on ebikes. Cycling culture should be about consideration, that means no whizzing close by pedestrians, ebike or no ebike.
I've commute biked on human power ever since I was a teenager, and since I'm Matt's age, I'm starting to realize that at some point, hopefully not too soon, I'll need an e-bike just because I'll get too old for a regular one.
I feel similarly. I bought a good bike for commuting and riding longer distances for recreation and then the pandemic came and the need to commute went away, but I do ride for hours on our very nice long bike trail that runs along the American River and I just find it strange how many ebikes are out there on a weekend because it seems like recreation but they are not really pedaling and when you pass them they seem to be annoyed and speed up and it's just strange to see someone barely pedaling and going kind of fast -- I think they make perfect sense for commuting and there are plenty of folks who use that trail to commute during the week but I just kind of wish on the weekend that the trail was for bikers and runners and walkers (I find the roller bladers kind of irritating because they take up so much space but I grudgingly acknowledge that they should also be welcome) and not for vehicles with motors. But I don't have a good reason for this -- it is probably pettiness.
My answer is: a class 1 (20 MPH, pedal-assist) ebike is fine everywhere a regular bicycle is, for all the reasons listed above -- normal bikes routinely reach this speed among even the moderately-fit.
A class 2 (throttle-controlled bike) is a motorcycle regardless of top speed and should be treated as such (or as a moped, if such a thing is licensed in your jurisdiction). Maybe that means it's allowed on a multi-mode path if it's got a speed limiter, or maybe not. No strong opinion there. Where I live, throttle-controlled vehicles (ebikes, mopeds, dirt bikes, etc.) are not permitted on multi-mode paths, though in practice I don't see much enforcement on electric bikes (vs gas-powered bikes, where there definitely is enforcement).
A class (28 MPH, pedal-assist) ebike is the grey zone. Most cyclists (if you include occasional and recreational cyclists) do not achieve this speed except on downhills, and it's far in excess of what's reasonable on sidewalks or on multi-use trails that aren't bicycle-only. I think these should probably not be allowed on trails/sidewalks where pedestrians are allowed, but I also think it's clearly a grey area and people will have differing opinions.
Good breakdown.
Yes, I lived in NYC for more than a decade without a car. I even lived in Brooklyn for seven years without a car. I understand. I had a bike. I was an early ZipCar member. I loved the subway. I occasionally took cabs. And, when I needed to go to wedding in the region, but outside of the city, I would even rent a car -- although that was generally before the existence of ZipCar.
NYC's subway made that possible. Without the subway, we could not have done it. I do not know that we could have done that in Boston or any other American city.
And I have known many many people who found that having children made carless NYC life much more difficult. In our 8 unit/4-story building, most residents had a car, though only one.
So, why did I cite Brooklyn? Well, it's somewhere that I am intimately familiar with. It's somewhere that many people think they are familiar with. It is considered more family-friendly than Manhattan.
And, it can get people like you to chime in.
So, I invite you to consider the other people who live in your building. How many of them have cars? Do the cars of the people in your building fit just in front of your building? Do you think the expectations of your peers match your own?
And finally, I offered numbers. I offered numbers for a broader audience. I was explicit in what I laid out so that people could evaluation their implications for themselves.
>>Something like an e-bike or a scooter for daily use and an Uber or a Zipcar for occasional car needs is a decent combination for a lot of people.<<
There's a capacity-setting issue here. If not that many people use e-bikes, then depending on alternatives like Uber isn't a problem. But if the majority use e-bikes then when the big storm comes rolling in, or it's really freezing, and everyone is desperate for an Uber to get to work, then there's a problem. Those cars simply won't be there.
I'm not sure what the solution is, though maybe folks with e-bikes are fine with going out in a rainstorm or a deep freeze.
When the big storm comes rolling in, people will postpone nonessential trips, or replace them with closer substitutes they can walk to. Or, switch from bikes to public transit. The idea that, every time it rains, every bike trip gets replaced with an Uber trip is simply not true.
Not to mention people get used to their local weather. Plenty of people bike in the rain and cold in the PNW. We’re just used to it. We tend to get drizzle over a long period of time rather than really heavy rain but we still do get really heavy downpours. And 35 F with rain is about as miserable as it can get. We still have people commuting by bike in that weather.
Love that e-bikes are part of the discussion even in these circles! I’ve been riding them for 6 years now. Early adopter because I live in East Harlem and there were tons of delivery guys on them and I just thought they seemed cool. For me it was all about how quickly I could get to the pool where I swim (1.5 miles away) and volleyball leagues around the city (.5 to 2 miles away). The ebike proved amazing for both. I had kids 5 years ago and quickly started bringing my daughter everywhere (daycare and errands) on the bike. When we had our second, we got the radwagon and it has become our “bus” for getting the kids everywhere. A couple things make this doable for us: 1) we live on the first floor of our condo building. Bringing these big heavy bikes in and out can be hard for people who live in walk ups. We need to build better safety storage for bikes. I leave the bikes out during the day (locked) and then bring in at the end of the day. 2) we have bike lanes all around East Harlem and there are so many bikes that people GENERALLY are pretty respectful of bikes.
I was always struck that the Dutch don’t wear helmets despite being a bike culture. Then I realized that when everyone rides bikes, car drivers are also bike riders and they are very aware of bikes as a result. You need less safety mechanisms. This is becoming more true in NYC, but still far from widespread enough. The white bikes you see on corners are memorials of where deaths on bikes have happened and they are far to frequent to be comfortable.
The radwagon is so popular and cool that I use it to bring my daughter and two of her friends from school to their afterschool program. Saving other parents the trip and also getting them there super quickly.
I rode motorcycles growing up (stopped when I moved to NYC 20 years ago after a few close calls) and I think the speed and power of an ebike feels relaxed compared to the motorcycles I used to ride. But I’m very aware of how frightening they can be to pedestrians and bike riders due to the speed. Hopefully this awareness builds are more people ride and it becomes more common.
Finally - alternate street parking is like my biggest complaint about NYC. It seems SOOOO dumb to charge nothing for something so valuable. To take such valuable space for cars when garage parking is $300-750/month (more in some places) is just insane. Tax revenue, additional bikes lanes. More spaces for outdoor dining. More pedestrian spaces, less congestion. Who advocates for free parking?
Dutch & helmets: there's another side to it. I grew up in the Netherlands and have practically biked all my life. When people starting using helmets (1995?), this felt incredibly wimpy. But for me, skiing with a helmet, I've always done that but I started in my 30s. Around that time, I met a lifelong skier and she thought skiers with helmets were wimps while biking with a helmet made perfect sense.
I like this explanation better!
>>Who advocates for free parking?<<
Non-affluent New Yorkers who can't find $7k in their annual budget for private parking, and the politicians who depend on their votes. That's who.
This past summer Matt Y. detailed a proposal that might address the constituent capture issues buttressing the insane policy of giving away precious city street space. He was talking about DC and other cities with similar, resident parking permit programs. Not sure if it would work in the context of NYC.(No permits there, right? You don't even have to have NY plates, IIRC).
My landlady is a judge. She has her nanny do the "street-cleaning shuffle" for her every week, which involves sitting in the car to look like you are going to move it when the street-cleaning comes by so you don't have to give up your free parking spot.
unfortunately it isn’t non-affluent parkers (at least not in my neighborhood). Here, people basically pay someone (less than garage parking, but not an insignificant amount), to move their car. We have a “fix a flat” on our block and the guys who run it, who are basically out front of the shop all day, basically run the parking on our street. They collect money from some people to move the cars and they provide it free to others who are “part of the community”. We actually got this offered to us, as we are super friendly, but we declined because we pay for parking at a garage nearby and it is fairly reasonable and we prefer that the service be for people who need it more.
There are no permits in NYC. You just have to move your car for 1.5 hours every two days. That is the “use tax” - and it is incredibly inefficient.
Sure. I didn't mean to denigrate the socioeconomic attributes of your neighborhood. Instead of "non-affluent" I guess I should have written something like "price conscious."
I just moved to Bentonville, Arkansas. They like bikes here. There are trails, and cars and bikes coexist with a great amount of harmony. It's really nice. I will probably buy an e-bike and a mountain bike once I get settled in to my new house.
I moved here from suburban Houston, where I lived for 24 years. I traveled a lot for my work and was able to spend time in many of our large metropolitan areas, including DC where both of my kids spent time there going to school. I'm glad you are embracing biking there and I can see where it may be a workable option for getting around there. Not so in Houston. It's too hot, too car-centric, and there are just way, way too many people there. It was very livable there when I moved there but the traffic is way worse now and the cost of living is catching up to other large metro areas.
There are a lot of mid-sized metro areas, however, that are great places. I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska but, like many in my generation, migrated to larger cities for better job opportunities. Hopefully, fiber internet and the work-from-home revolution will spark a migation to places like Bentonville and Omaha that can adapt easier to the changing infrastructure needs. And, maybe over time, the big cities will get a little less big so they can open up some room to make changes there, too. Urbanization can be a two-way street (with bike lanes.)
Matt, I can’t believe you didn’t include a footnote with the number of shoes your grandfather found people needed. Please tell us.
At least 2.
Surely it's more like 1.9 -- the average number of feet per person is less than 2 after all. (Now I'm imagining a ration coupon regime in which everyone receives two footwear coupons -- one per shoe -- and there's an active market for spare coupons from amputees and other people with fewer than two feet.)